If you’re not careful, planning a wedding can easily become a full-time job. But when you already have a full-time job and are moving to a new apartment, you’ve got to do everything in your power to keep that from happening. That has been our youngest daughter’s situation since her engagement one year ago (of course, it’s been our situation, too).
Keeping it all under control doesn’t look hard, at least theoretically. You just have to take a rational approach: Decide to keep things as simple as they can be kept, prioritize what’s genuinely important and let go of all the rest. I say all that as a testimony to what I have learned as a mother-of-the-wrangler in previous rodeos over the years.
But there’s a reason “wedding planner” is a profession, albeit one our family has neither the desire nor the resources to pay for. Weddings seem to have a life of their own, one that resembles a giant snowball rolling down a mountainside; a havoc-wreaking globe that gains volume, velocity, escalating intensity as the date draws nearer. The most confident and well-matched couples can’t seem to escape it. And even the most organized and undemanding bride still becomes overwhelmed by the sheer number of choices set before her. “Decision fatigue” is real.
Putting on a wedding is a big deal. But when you believe in the couple getting married, every sacrifice and expense seems worth the trouble. With every additional detail on that endless to-do list comes anticipation and joy.
I imagine that God’s plan for salvation was a lot like planning a wedding. Since the moment he created humanity, the Father longed for us to share his life and love. Like a faithless fiancée, we failed to grasp the depth of what we had in him, grasped for something else instead and fell away. But God did not give up on us. He simply waited through the centuries and planned his next move.
In the Blessed Virgin Mary, whose Immaculate Conception we will soon observe, God’s wedding plans began to take shape. Saved from the stain of original sin at her conception, Mary was entirely pure and free from disordered desires. A bride herself, she alone would be worthy of ushering the Divine Bridegroom into the world, the fallen and human world of his bride, the church.
When you’re planning a wedding, there’s only one date that matters. Similarly, all of human history was centered on and directed to the incarnational moment. As the words of the Exsultet tell us, heaven was wed to earth in a match made not just in heaven, but by heaven. In Nazareth, God became human, like us in all things except sin, so that we could become like him. That is, so that we could take his name as our own and become one with him.
Salvation history is a love story, a romance between God and every human being. Think I’m pushing it? The Bible clearly tells us that the happily ever after we all long for is a marriage.
“As a young man marries a virgin, so your builder will marry you. As the bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so shall your God rejoice over you” (Is 62:5).
“I am not the Messiah, but I have been sent ahead of him. He who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. For this reason my joy has been fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease” (Jn 3:28b-30).
“Jesus said to them, ‘Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them'” (Mt 9:15)? “For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ” (2 Cor 11:2).
It’s easy to forget that we are called to the eternal wedding supper of the lamb not as guests, but as the bride. Heaven is the wedding God has been planning forever. There, we won’t have to worry about vendors or venues. When the day of the Lord arrives, all to-do lists will disappear. The Bridegroom will come for his bride. Our only task is to be radiant and ready to welcome him.
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